Ever since it made its way into the bowels of the iPhone, and thus into our lives, Siri has always had a phrase to invoke, “Hey Siri”. And from the get-go, I’ll admit that I’ve always felt that it gave the iOS voice assistant, and later the rest of Apple devices, a certain patina of humanity. I don’t know, maybe it’s stupid, but putting “Hey” before using his name always felt pretty natural to me.

However, as we can read on Engadget, it seems that Apple wants to simplify this interaction in order to make it, which may seem paradoxical at first, more complex. As a result, they have been working for some time to train the AI ​​behind the assistant so that it is no longer necessary to say “Hey” (or Hey, as well as various variants in other languages) and instead, . be able to respond just by hearing your name, Siri.

Contrary to what it might seem, training this AI would be quite a complex task. And it makes some sense, because the smaller the text string used to invoke the wizard, the higher the chance of false positives. This is why, for example, it would be incredibly difficult to just use a common word like “Hello” because Siri would think we require her services every time we greet someone.

I don’t know if Siri is a word with a specific meaning in any language, but even if it wasn’t, yes, we can find a word that integrates both syllablesnot to mention the possible combinations of words where one ends with yes and the other begins with ri (I don’t mean Spanish, of course, I mean the many languages ​​that Apple’s voice assistant “speaks”.

And what did I mean by simplify to make it more complicated? OK, I understand that based on usage studies done by Apple, the “Hey Siri” formula makes it more difficult for some users to string together in a single word order the command to invoke and the action they want it to perform. But many users do not know this no need to say “Hey Siri” and wait for her response to tell her what you want.

Instead, you can directly say, for example, “Hey Siri, I want to listen to Diana Ross and The Supremes,” and in seconds you’ll be transported back in time to the ultimate motoring city. And what Apple is suggesting, and it may be right, is that by removing the “Hey” they see that users are more likely to call the assistant and tell it what they need in the same sentence. And so, when we think about it, it makes sense that the present sentence unconsciously forces us to think of the operation as a conversation, not a simple sentence.

However, it seems that this change will not work quickly. Quite the opposite, and according to Mark Gurman, who first reported it, it seems that the system will not be ready until 2024and it is not even clarified whether this period is limited exclusively to Siri in English, or whether this year, on the contrary, it would reach the rest of the languages ​​​​supported by Siri, or at least some of them.